As the art market continues to heat up despite the international recession, record revenues continue to be predicted for 2013. The scale is a bit unbalanced with leaders like Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso and Edvard Munch.

With the Fountain Art Fair just around the corner, March 8-10, I looked for the next leader. I found Bernard Klevickas. A few words with recent Sculptors Guild inductee and NYC artist found at a local gallery near you____

PS: As a FAF veteran, if you could you sum up the FAF vibe in one word, what would it be?

BK: Grassroots. The original Armory Fair in 1913 was begun with American artists picking contemporary art. Fountain is more in line with artists showing artists than the many other art fairs. It also feels inline with groups like the Hullaballoo Collective, which is a group of artists working collaboratively to show their art and the Sculptors Guild which was founded and run by artists since 1937.

PS: How did the Indiana boy make his way to living and creating art in NYC?

BK: I didn't fit-in anywhere else. A left-handed, shy nerd bad at sports who rode a bicycle everywhere and drifted into skateboarding. I always doodled and made things. I used to believe this saying that ________"function was more important than form but at some point I guess it became inverted and I came to think that form was all important. Eventually there was no where left for me to go, though I often consider Barcelona.

PS: Where did you procure your choice sculptural lines?

BK: Maybe it was the time I spent living in the Hudson Valley. After Indiana, which is very flat and fairly sparse, I moved to Chicago which is very flat (land-wise, not in the high-rise building sense) but dense, then I moved to the Hudson Valley. The hills, valleys, mountains had a strong impact on me. Again this goes back to the form over function, maybe a baroque sensibility that it is the path more than the goal that matters.

PS: _________on the current art market____

BK: ..there are extremely wealthy people out there who buy what they are told to buy from the suggestions of experts. Experts who approve what seems to have already been approved, so it limits the risk taking. Any middle level seems to have disappeared because all the focus is on the highest end. The interesting art is outside of this carnival of hype.

PS: You are dining out with friends. In the distance a wave-like form catches your eye. Naturally, you're drawn to it, you get up and work your way across the room and discover it's Donald Trump'__________s hair. He waves you over to sit down. What's the message?

BK: May I see your birth certificate? I would love to see a shift in the artworld happen. More attention to the misfits, the oddballs, the ones who aren'__________t given exhibitions at Gagosian or Pace or Zwirner or Hauser and Wirth. The ones who have not been hand-picked from Yale by powerful and wealthy conglomerate art galleries. I feel this way not just for my own sake, but there is an enormous amount of talented artists in their prime (regardless of age or gender) who are ignored.

PS: I was always partial to the ____________"land of the misfits. You can'__________t ignore the talent historically exhibited at the Fountain Art Fair. So don't. Attendance has almost doubled from the previous year (2011 v. 2012). Better marketing or a shift in demand? I think Bernard'__________s getting what he wants. Buy advanced tickets today:http://www.fountainartfair.com/visitor-info